


House and Home

by Rubynye



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8907730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: Laura Barton drops the hammer and Tony Stark buys the farm.





	

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Samalander for teaching me who Laura Barton is and PotofSoup for beta-reading this, and also Dana and C.

Laura is out back, methodically smashing Stark's latest extravagant peace offering (some sort of abstract dinosaur sculpture, crumbling satisfyingly under her sledgehammer) when the government agents arrive. 

Three sedans emerge from the night, sleek new black -- how stupid do they think she is? She lets the hammer drop with one more hearty crunch onto the ruined so-called artwork, keeping her hand loose around the handle as she watches them roll up the dusty road. It's high summer, no rain for a fortnight, the tires kicking up a billowing plume that glows faintly in the half-moon's light.

No one's shot at her yet, so they must intend to try talking first. Again. While she can, Laura reaches into her pocket and squeezes the chirper once. She tucked its mate under Natasha's fingers before she got out of bed. Once is all they need.

Then Laura pulls her hand back out of her pocket, shaking out her empty fingers where they can be seen, and thinks once again, _Clinton Barton I am going to_ kick _your ass_ , as she waits for the agents to reach her house.

They park, and Laura doesn't go for the Glock holstered under her top. She arranges her face into a gently bemused mask, keeping her stance soft. "Hello?" she calls as they pile out of their cars two by two. "It's very late."

"Laura Barton?" asks the woman in the lead, a parody of Laura's own past with her sensibly restrained hair and her crisp pantsuit and her bland professional smile. Laura could almost laugh, darkly amused somewhere below the suspicious dread curdling in her belly, and as she nods she spares a brain cell to wonder if she looked this damn stupid doing the 'we're from the government and were here to help you' walk. 

Before she can hear the usual 'few questions' speech she pipes up with "I've already spoken to your colleagues." Twice. "I'm sorry" -- she's not -- "but I have nothing more to say. And it's very late. I don't want the children to be woken up."

The mention of the children .... doesn't soften the agents' expressions as expected. The biggest one squares his big square jaw. "Indeed," says the woman, as the last pair peel away to circle around both sides of the house.

Laura's heart jolts. It's an effort to keep her voice sweet as she calls, "Hey," after them. "Sirs? This is my house! You do not have permission to enter!" Why the fuck do they want to?

"So this is the residence of Nathaniel --" whips Laura around to face the woman and the three agents behind, her terror throwing them all into sharp detail: the big-jawed big guy, another taller woman with a side-shave, and a man nearly as nondescript as Agent Coulson. " -- Pietro Barton, Lila Katherine --" They haven't come to talk. They've come for her children.

" _No,_ " Laura snaps, all sweetness gone, clenching her fist to keep her hand from her gun. If she gives them the excuse -- if Natasha has to fight them they'll bring in reinforcements -- "This has nothing to do with my children! Call off those two and get off my property!" Her voice rises out of control, stupid, stupid, she's been trained better than this, but they're not getting her _children_. 

The lead woman lifts an eyebrow above her glasses. " 'This', Ms. Barton? We're investigating a report of child neglect--"

"The _fuck_ you are," Laura snarls, letting go the hammer because she wants to heft it. "Child and Family would kill for cars that new and staff this beefy. This is about my _idiot_ " brave, determined, reckless, _idiot_ "husband, who won't even know you tried to steal his children because for the last time I have no idea where he is or how to reach him! So you have no reason to take them, and no right!" She drinks in a quick breath, air streaming cool over her tongue. "Get off my property!"

Laura wants her gun. She wants to raise her fists. She folds her arms and glares openly at the agents, listening to a soft rattling at her front door as the two lunks there try to quietly pry it open. If they rush her -- she considers and discards attack plans between heartbeats, remembering how to counter multiple opponents, plotting how to get back into the house, get Natasha, get the kids, as she stares down the agents invading her home. If she had one more person beside her, if they'd finished the second tunnel, if Clint had turned Steve Rogers down, if he'd never joined the Avengers, if if if.

The lead agent breaks the pause with, "Ms. Barton, are you armed?"

"Ma'am, do you have a badge?" Laura bares her teeth. "Why don't you go get it? And stay there?" Not her best, but she wants them gone so badly she can taste it, acrid in her mouth. 

For the first time the lead agent smiles. Her teeth are sharper. "No," she says, stepping forward, her backup stepping with her. Laura half-involuntarily grabs the sledgehammer's handle, sweat running chill down her spine. "Ms. Barton, let us in."

"No," Laura echoes, and adds a useless, "Go to Hell." This is going south, and she's gone soft, and hopefully Nat at least has the kids safe...

There's a whirr behind her, like a helicopter but more localized, and Laura feels an almost audible _snap_ inside her head, alarm too visceral for any specific curse. She whirls, catching up the sledgehammer, and sees a light --

\--shining from the chest plate of the Iron Man suit. Tony Stark's suit. With, presumably, Tony Stark inside it, and two thrashing agents dangling from the fists. "Maybe not that far," comes the tinny electronic voice, "but at least get off the lady's property," as he deposits the disgruntled agents on the hood of the nearest shiny car. "She even asked nicely."

All the agents step back, except the lead woman, who shuts her gaping mouth and replies somewhat firmly, "Mr. Stark, are you certain you want to interfere? We work for --"

"-- a powerful man, with powerful friends, blah blah blahdeeblah," Stark says, sounding bored, as he flies backwards to hover above Laura. She's only half tempted to swing her hammer at his metal boots. "Tell your grandboss to call me so I can put him on hold again. Meanwhile, scram."

The lead agent shuts her mouth, turns and nods, and they all scramble back into their cars, back up and drive away. Laura keeps her eyes fixed on their lit-up dust plume, pretending there isn't a metal-encased asshole who just saved her family floating over her head, until they vanish over the border of her farm.

"It's so sexist," Natasha says dryly from the doorway. "Even other women don't listen until a man says it."

"To be fair," says Stark, "I'm not just any man." Laura turns to look at Nat, who shrugs, and then at Stark as he lands. She should thank him or welcome him to their home, which he endangered, which he took Clint away from. She just grips the sledgehammer handle.

He pops his faceplate up, showing his bright eyes, that big ingratiating grin. "Hi, Laura, I can call you Laura, right? Sorry I'm late, the house looks lovely, do you have any of those cookies from last time?" He steps closer. Laura drops the hammer. "Hey, is that the hadrosaur skele-- "

Laura Barton rears up on her toes, putting her whole body into the swing as she punches Tony Stark in his open mouth.

She feels flesh and teeth and a puff of airy surprise. She pulls her hand back with her other hand around her wrist, restraining herself from a flurry of blows. Lifting his hand, Stark makes a noise, and she staggers back another step, though she can't possibly dodge if he blasts her; blood gleams on his lower lip, and Laura realizes, as his glove folds back and he touches his lip with two fingers, that he's laughing, his eyes crinkling around the corners.

"You're welcome," he says, chuckling through the words, and smiles even wider. "I really am sorry I'm late."

"You -- " Laura starts, and too many sentences jam into her throat. _Saved my children. Got my husband locked up. Broke the Avengers. Helped me, why? Knew they were coming?_ That last one. "Knew?"

"You didn't warn us?" Natasha comes around to stand at Laura's side, and Laura does not grab onto her, even though she knows from experience Natasha can carry her. 

"Didn't want to worry you," Stark mutters around his fingers. "Ow. Never mind the cookies, can I have an ice pack?"

"How?" Laura asks, apparently gone monosyllabic with shock. She shakes her head, as if she can rattle its contents back into working order, and Natasha curls a gentle hand beneath her elbow.

Stark smiles like he thinks he's charming. "I have my ways." And grimaces. "And you've got a helluva fist there, Laura. I'm impressed."

"You're an idiot," Natasha says fondly, reaching out to touch his armored elbow, and he leans into her touch as if he can feel it. "Dumbest genius I've ever met." He opens his mouth and she adds, "Even counting Banner."

"I feel appreciatively insulted," he says, "or maybe insultingly complimented," and Laura wants to laugh and is at least half sure she'll start crying if she does.

instead, she manages a reasonable, "Thank you," and Stark's face lights right up, somehow still cheerful despite the blood trickling from the corner of his lip. He must get punched a lot, she thinks, and helplessly smiles back.

Then she takes a breath, slower and calmer, through her nose, and looks to Natasha, who reports, "Still sound asleep, all three. I was about to get Cooper up when I heard..." as she nods towards Stark. 

Laura nods, and looks back at the house, at the broad flat farm around it, at the last decade of her life. "We're compromised," she says, softly admitting the truth.

"Should have seen this coming," Natasha agrees. "I'm sorry." 

Laura reaches over to squeeze Natasha's fingers, because she preemptively forgave Natasha back when Clint told her why waterskiing was cancelled, and looks up at Stark again. "Mr. Stark," she says, her voice mostly steady, "Would you like to buy a farm?"

"If we're doing business, call me Tony." He glances around a bit, eyebrows up as he takes the measure of the place, and nods. "I've always wanted to try my hand at, um, farmer-ing."

Natasha smiles, small and bright, and Laura's adrenaline nausea finally starts to fade, she can finally see ahead again. "Come in, Tony, I guess." Time for the next step, with Natasha by her side. "Don't you dare wake the children." Wherever they go, when Clint gets back he'll find them, as long as they're together. "First, let's get you that ice pack."

**Author's Note:**

> One more dedication: to fandom's Team Iron for so vocally and obnoxiously missing the point of the movie. I couldn't even recognize Tony Stark in their descriptions of a pure and perfect paragon who was the only hero of CA:CW, bravely defying the evil Steve Rogers and his criminal crew. So I figured I'd write down at least a little of the Tony I've seen in the MCU, as well as the Laura Barton I've envisioned through the writings of those who didn't reflexively hate her.


End file.
